Hi, my name is Armin.
For those of you who don’t know me yet: My name is Armin and I am from Austria and the author of the publication armix.one. On the internet, I usually use the nickname “ARMIX” — that was the name of my own company, which I had from 2002 to 2006.
I am in my thirties and love IT since I went to elementary school.
Professional career
I started my IT career as (Junior) Systems Engineer at the KTW Software & Consulting in Wörgl, Austria. After civil service, I moved to Kathrein-Austria in Niederndorf, where I worked first as a software developer for web applications in the IT department and later as a system administrator. In 2011, I was promoted to the Head of IT at Kahtrein-Austria. Since 2016 I am team leader of the IT Services Team at MED-EL in Innsbruck.
Self-employment: ARMIX
From 2002 to 2006 I was self-employed on a part-time basis. ARMIX Internet Solutions started as a small web hosting company with a single server.
The later added webshop ARMIXSHOP.com was unfortunately not online for a long time, because I quickly realized that a webshop with more than 30,000 articles is not to be operated part-time.
In the end, ARMIX networks was mainly dealing with web development and cloud services.
ARMIX was a registered trademark in Austria for 10 years.
Higher education
Parallel to the position at Kathrein-Austria, I studied Information Technology and Systems Management in Salzburg.
My bachelor thesis dealt with the control of lighting systems. I developed an Android app and a Java-based web server, which ran on a Freescale (NXP) i.MX board and controlled LEDs with this application.
In my master’s degree, I also specialized in Future Energy Systems, Convergent Networking & Mobility. As part of my master thesis, I developed an SDN-based control software to optimize data streams in SmartGrid data networks. The topic of my master thesis was also the second article I published in Heise Verlag’s iX magazine.
Projects
Over the last 20 years I’ve completed some projects I’m really proud of. A few of them I’d like to mention here:
DynamicFlow
DynamicFlow was part of my master thesis. DF is a Java application that controls network switches using an OpenFlow controller. It measures the load on certain ports of the switch and can change the flow using the OpenFlow protocol.
Example: Data flow A is very important and time-critical. In the case of a shear load B that would affect the flow, the flow can be dynamically prioritized or redirected to another port.
KIMS
KIMS was the project with the longest development time. The framework has been developed from 2003 to 2016. KIMS is a web platform that can be used to implement a wide variety of workflows.
Some of KIMS’ features are…
- KISS: Security system; manages users, user groups and permissions. SQL-based session management, independent of the preprocessor on the webserver — enables a combination of PHP and ASP code. Admin can view and kill open sessions per user/client/browser. Send “broadcast messages” to send a message to all users.
- Autosave: Saves entered form data as soon as the form field loses focus. Client-side plausibility check before the data is sent to the server. The background color of input field is changed, depending on the saving status. (Red=invalid value, green=valid value, light blue=data sent to server and saved to database)
- Availability awareness: Indicates whether the employee is currently working in the company or not.
- KIMScall: Simply click on the link next to an employee to call that employee. KIMS controls the hardphone at the desk (not just a softphone) and establishes the connection to the callee. (Works with Alcatel TAPI.)
- MFA: Multi-factor authentication with password an USB-Token. The KIMS server connects to a service on the client computer and checks if the required Key is connected to one of the USB ports of the PC. (Works with Wibu-Key.)
- KIMSlite: Offline version of KIMS. View data without a connection to the database server. It uses KIMSoffline and synchronizes data from the MSSQL server to a local SQLite database on the client. (Uses Javascript and Google Gears.)
In addition to KIMS, KIARA is a dedicated browser (Mozilla WebRunner/Prism runtime environment) that runs without installation and permanently monitors the connection to the server — independent of the currently used web application.
laraserv
laraserv is a lightweight application server for remote administration. It is basically a Java-based web server that has a web interface and an XML-based API. The lara client Android app can connect to the server.
I have developed laraserv to control LEDs. You can imagine the way Philips Hue works — except that Hue didn’t exist at that time. The first generation of Hue was launched a few months later.
vortaro.info
vortaro.info was an online dictionary (German — Esperanto). In addition to a simple translation, the website also offered text-to-speech (TTS). Vortaro’s website sent an HTTP request to tts.armix.net and the tts server created an MP3 file and streamed this file to the client.
ARMIXSHOP.com
ARMIXSHOP was the webshop of my former company. I wanted to sell IT-equipment as well as software development and services at that time. Because I didn’t like any ready-to-use webshop solutions, I decided to develop my own webshop. My shop is open-source and can be downloaded from sourceforge.net. But for today’s standards it is no longer state of the art.
The “armixshopengine” was able to offer different payment options and shipping costs could be calculated depending on the weight. There was a “wish list” function, RMA/return goods management and the shop was also multi-client capable. Stock levels of wholesalers were checked in real time.
My add-on module “im.port” has imported the stock list from suppliers and thus provides a constantly updated article master database. im.port is the only module that is not included in the open-source package.
SMSing.at
SMSing.at was a mobile communication platform. I tried to build a community similar to sms.at. Besides sending SMS there was also a chat and an addressbook to manage contacts. The sending of standard SMS was free of charge. Some services were subject to a charge. These services were billed in “a.points”. A.points could be loaded with paysafecard — a loading voucher, which can be bought in tobacconists.
The platform was financed by business solutions (SMS service for customer websites) and advertising.
Certifications
Over the years I have attended a few courses and completed some certifications:
- 2008 IBM Certified Associate System Administrator for Lotus Notes Domino 8
- 2011 Cisco CCNA
- 2011 Apprentice trainer (BAG §29g)
- 2012 ISO 9001 Quality Management
- 2012 IPMA Level D certified Project Manager Associate
- 2016 AWS Certified Solutions Architect — Associate
